Fish and Fishing 



doctor next to Jock Scott. It is a remarkable fact 

 that both these flies have been in constant use for 

 over fifty years; since that time nothing has been 

 tied to beat them, or equal them. 



The capriciousness of salmon, one of their few 

 characteristics of which we are absolutely certain, 

 makes it unsafe to lay down any but the most 

 general propositions as to what colors or effects in 

 flies are to be used under varying conditions ; there- 

 fore I prefer to give Mr. Sage's list, because he was 

 a salmon angler of wide and long experience in our 

 own rivers, and it is to his kindness I owe my first 

 experience in taking salmon. He says in part: 

 "Perhaps bright or dark colors in strong, or high, 

 or dark water, would be the Durham ranger, 

 Popham, silver doctor, Jock Scott or Nicholson; 

 for medium and clearing water, the butcher, 

 Jock Scott, silver doctor, and black and brown 

 fairies; for low water, brown fairy, Jock Scott, 

 silver doctor. It will be observed that the Jock 

 Scott, silver doctor, and fairies are included in 

 the flies appropriate for all stages of water and 

 varieties of weather; and although I have never 

 done it myself, I think a man pro- 

 FliS ^'"'"^ ^ided with an ample stock, of dif- 

 ferent sizes, of these three flies, 

 could catch as many fish, in any river of this coun- 

 try, as if he had the entire stock of any fly tier in 

 the world to choose from." Further on he says, 

 "In addition to the above, the Britannia, the 

 Nepisiguit gray, the Durham ranger, the Nichol- 

 son, the butcher, and the Beaufort moth, should 

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